Hearing assistance devices, including hearing aids, for use in the ear, in the ear canal, completely in the canal, and behind the ear, have been developed to ameliorate the effects of hearing losses in individuals. Hearing deficiencies can range from deafness to hearing losses where the individual has impairment responding to different frequencies of sound or to being able to differentiate sounds occurring simultaneously. The hearing assistance device in its most elementary form usually provides for auditory correction through the amplification and filtering of sound provided in the environment with the intent that the individual hears better than without the amplification. Hearing assistance devices are electronic devices that provide signal processing functions such as noise reduction, amplification, and tone control. In many hearing assistance devices these and other functions can be programmably varied to fit the requirements of individual users.
One limitation of current hearing assistance device devices is that a user cannot, and current devices cannot themselves, reprogram hearing assistance device properties and communicate with a hearing assistance device to adapt to changing conditions such as the environment in which the hearing assistance device is used without the device being in wired communication with a computer. With the introduction of improved wireless communication between devices, it is now possible to reprogram or communicate with an electronic device anywhere. The introduction of wireless communication networks, specifically Local Area Networks (LAN) has expanded the options available to device manufacturers and consumers. Also, with the existence of multiple wireless communication protocols, there is a need for such an improved wireless communication with hearing assistance devices to quickly and easily adapt to existing and changing wireless communication protocols.
Therefore, there is a need in the art to provide a portable device that can communicate wirelessly, using any wireless protocol, with a hearing assistance device regardless of the physical location of a user.